Film festival should inspire local productions
For a few days this weekend the Princess Hotel was transformed into a world of international culture as films from places as diverse as Cuba and Taiwan marched across the cinema’s two screens. But while the entertainment value of the event was beyond doubt, the question still remains as to what a film festival means to the local artistic scene. Today, News 5 caught up with one of the festival’s invited guests, Trinidad’s Bruce Paddington, for an evaluation of where Belize’s film future may be headed.
Bruce Paddington, Festival Participant, Trinidad
“I think the film festival plays a very important role in letting people be aware that the world is not just Hollywood, it’s not just Disney films, that is not the only vision of entertainment, so hopefully, this will inspire Belizeans to want to make their own films. This will inspire hopefully the government to want to support the film industry. This will hopefully encourage the cinema owners to want to show more independent films, more non-Hollywood films. And I think already, there is a buzz going around because of the festival that might help these things to happen.”
Stewart Krohn
“How realistic is it to believe that a country like Belize, with not much of a film tradition other than these foreign films shot on location here, how realistic is it to expect that one day, in the next decade let’s say, Belize may produce its first home grown feature film?”
Bruce Paddington
“If Trinidad and Tobago can do it, if Jamaica can do it, I don’t see why Belize can’t do it as well, especially because of the new technologies that are involved. You can film on digital video and there are many digital video cameras that are available in Belize. You can edit on a computer. What is expensive is the post-production, but the cost has gone down dramatically. At the film festival we saw a film called, Secrets of the Shell, that was from Trinidad and Tobago and that was edit on video and was made for a comparatively low price. And the film that won the people’s award, which was Miel Para Oshun, Honey for Oshun, that was shot on video, a Cuban film directed by Humberto Solas. It was shot on video, edit on video, and again has been distributed and shown all over the world. So if countries like Cuba and Jamaica and Trinidad can take advantage of these new technologies and make quality films at a comparatively lost cost, I don’t see why Belize couldn’t do the same thing.”
And what advice does Paddington have for those who are still feeling inspired by the magic of cinema?
Bruce Paddington
“I think the advice is that you have to have a commitment to wanting to do this thing. In the same way as a writer has to say, I’m going to write this book, and it’s going to be a good book, and I want to get this book read by as many people as possible. If a Belizean has talent, has a good idea for a script, they need to start to work on the script. Maybe they should start with a short film, but my advice is go for it and maybe yours will be the one that is the breakthrough movie, just go for it.”
Film buffs are reminded that one late arriving film, the Italian romantic comedy, “A Perfect Love”, will be showing at the Princess on Wednesday night at seven. On Thursday night, thanks to the generosity of the Indian Community and Princess Hotel, the comedy “American Chai”, will mark the final exhibition of the festival. Passes are still good for both showings.